“We’re going to put our heads together, and we’re going to share the latest research, technology, policy, public outreach, and enforcement practices,” wrote LaHood on his blog The Fast Lane. “When we’re done with the summit, we’re going to continue working to put an end to the thousands of needless deaths and injuries caused by distracted driving each year.”

The summit adds to LaHood’s momentum on distracted driving enforcement. Earlier this month, he demolished an anti-distracted driving campaign launched on behalf of electronics lobbyists in Washington. “Regardless of what a powerful lobbying group has to say, the simple fact is that texting and talking on cell phones behind the wheel is a deadly epidemic,” LaHood wrote. “To suggest otherwise is to put your head in the sand. To spend considerable resources to suggest otherwise is a glaring waste.”

Seven states and the district of Columbia have already enacted bans on hand held devices and more than thirty states have approved bans on texting behind the wheel. California has led the way in strong enforcement of distracted driving laws. Even though the state boasts a 60 percent compliance rate with the current law, the state legislature hopes to boost fines from $20 to $50 for a first time distracted driver, and $50 to $100 for repeat offenders.

State Sen. Joe Simitian, who has spearheaded the legislation, says it won’t be long before putting the phone away while driving will be a no brainer. “Enacting seat belt legislation, for example, took a long time,” he told GJEL. “Now it’s routine that when you climb into the car, you buckle the belt. Over time, we’ve gotten 90% compliance on seat belts. It will take time, education, and enforcement.”

One major result of last year’s distracted driving summit was a ban on cell phone use while driving for all government employees. We’re hoping this year’s session will go even further to make the roads safer.

Here’s LaHood discussing the summit on C-SPAN:

Photo credit: edkohler

Early Thursday morning, a tragic Greyhound bus accident in Fresno, California caused six deaths and more than 30 injuries. Accidents this tragic are rare but not rare enough.

Needless to say, the overwhelming majority of Greyhound’s 25 million yearly passengers split among the company’s 13,000 daily departures arrive at their destinations safely. But the routes that don’t arrive safely stick out, as highlighted by last Thursday’s Fresno accident.  And as the nation’s most recognizable carrier, the severity of its accidents are indicative of the bus industry as a whole.

Greyhound has unfortunately been involved in major accidents that have led to multiple deaths and dozens of injuries in the last decade. In the last two years alone, its buses have been involved in nearly 140 bus accidents that led to injuries, deaths, or towed vehicles, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

Here’s a look at ten of the company’s most serious accidents over the past decade: 

October 3, 2001: Soon after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, a suspected terrorist murdered a Greyhound driver and sent a bus careening into traffic in Tennessee. The resulting accident killed five and injured more than 30. Authorities considered it an isolated act, and not part of a larger terrorist threat. The assailant, Croatian Damir Igric, was also killed in the crash. The accident prompted Greyhound to boost security procedures at all affiliated bus stations.

September 30, 2002: A year later, another passenger attacked a driver on a Greyhound traveling from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Two passengers died and more than twenty were injured when the bus rolled off an embankment and crashed after the driver was killed outside Fresno, the same location of Thursday’s accident. In response to the attack, Greyhound installed driver shields in all vehicles and prohibited passengers from sitting in seats directly behind the driver.

November 27, 2005: More than three years later, on the same bus route from Los Angeles to San Francisco, a Greyhound bus crashed leaving several injured and two dead, including a 23-year-old pregnant woman. At the time, authorities said driver fatigue was the most likely cause of the 7:10 am accident. “There’s a strong possibility that the driver fell asleep and ran off the road,” said California Highway Patrol Commander Dan Minor. Two years later in a related lawsuit, a epileptic seizure was called the likely cause.

August 28, 2006: On route between New York and Montreal, a Greyhound bus overturned after one of its tires popped on Highway 87, leaving five dead and 48 injured. “I just heard a noise, a rattling noise, and then all of a sudden it lost control,” said driver Sylvia Jean Cracier.

July 3, 2007: On its way from New York City to Richmond, VA, a greyhound bus carrying 48 passengers inexplicably caught on fire on the New Jersey Turnpike.

January 2, 2008: Over in North Carolina near the Virginia border, a Greyhound bus overturned when it rear-ended a truck after that truck slowed to make a turn. The bus fell down the embankment and leaving 48 passengers injured, including the driver and an elderly woman in critical condition.

February 24, 2008: The next month in Pennsylvania, a Greyhound bus flipped over on Interstate 380 near Scranton, injuring more than 40 passengers, two seriously. The cause of accident was not immediately clear, but highway officials said driver fatigue may have been a factor, since the accident occurred at 4:15 am.

March 16, 2010: The week after a Greyhound bus underwent a maintenance check, its driveshaft popped and sent the bus spinning for hundreds of feet before coming to a stop on a highway near San Antonio, Texas. “The driver reacted when she heard the popping sound. It alerted her attention that something wasn’t right,” said Department of Public Safety Captain Steven Tellez. “Certainly without the drive shaft or without the full operation, it could have affected her being able to control her bus.” The accident left two dead and 40 inured.

May 6, 2010: A misunderstanding on a Greyhound bus in New Hampshire led to the perception of a bomb threat and a nine hour standoff with local police authorities in May. The confrontation began when a passenger believed he overheard a bomb threat over the phone while sitting next to a man from Burundi. Though the other passengers evacuated the bus safely, the accused man refused to leave out of fear of retribution. The bomb threat was later found to be false, but a police officer on the scene said it was likely the man simply had a fear of police officers.

July 22, 2010: There remain a handful of important unknowns about the cause and effects of last Thursday’s Greyhound bus accident in Fresno. California Highway Patrol officers have said the driver likely swerved to avoid hitting an overturned SUV, but authorities are unsure about the time or cause of the SUV crash. It is also unknown whether the women in the SUV, who were among the fatalities, were killed by the initial crash, or the Greyhound collision.

Due to the necessity of keeping buses full of passengers to make the ride cost-effective, bus accidents usually cause significant damage both in terms of quantity and severity of each injury. Previous accidents have clearly led to a review, and in some cases a change, in Greyhound’s internal policies and security measures; sadly, this one hasn’t even led to a tweet from the company, let alone a press statement or any internal investigation.

Our thoughts are with the families of those who were killed and injured on Thursday.  We hope the most recent accident in Fresno will serve as a wakeup call that stricter regulations are needed for passenger vehicle safety–for all bus companies, including Greyhound.

“By getting that research out there in a way that is easily understood, we can change behavior,” said Thomas Horan, the CERS Research Director, noting that the site separates accidents based on layers of behavioral variables. “While an accident or a fatality occurred at a specific location, the behavior is a strong driver in the adverse outcome. And we want to really affect that behavior.”

The data is collected online and displayed on an interactive Google-type map. These maps can be modified to yield more specific information or clearer images of the intersection in question. I typed in downtown San Francisco and found that of the ten fatal car accidents in San Francisco in 2008, the user can quickly determine which accidents were caused by high speeds, drinking, or failure to wear a seat belt.

In addition to local results, the site enables access to fatal accident information on the state and national levels, separated by more levels of variables, including type of vehicle, and age of the victims.

Check out the website to get a better understanding of the most dangerous intersections you drive by every day. But while you’re there, take some time to think about Horan’s suggestion that it be used as a resource to get drivers to abandon bad habits on the road. For more, see the whole interview with Horan here:

Photo credit: Rob!

UPDATE: The Fresno Bee has been live blogging this story, with consistent, up to the minute updates. Check it out here.

A Greyhound bus driving from Los Angeles to Sacramento collided with an overturned SUV in California’s Central Valley on Highway 99 near Fresno early Thursday morning. To avoid a second collision, confirms California Highway Patrol Officer Michelle Sigmond, the driver of the Greyhound swerved and crashed in to a concrete divider and a large eucalyptus tree. The bus accident led to 6 deaths and 34 injuries.

Among the deaths were the driver of the bus, four yet-to-be identified women, and likely one of the passengers in the overturned SUV. Authorities said injured passengers were taken to Community Regional Medical Center and other Valley hospitals.

“I had just woke up and I heard a boom once, and a boom again and the next thing I know we were down this embankment,” said Linda Gee, a passenger on the bus. “There was just bleeding everywhere…I’m alive and I thank God I’m alive.”

The Fresno bus accident is a tragic reminder that our highways need to be safer. Our thoughts are with the families of those killed and injured by Thursday’s accidents.

We’ll keep you updated with developments on this story as the situation becomes more clear.

Photo credit: heliosphan

Especially in the midst of an evolving Detroit, which follows the green revolution and a year with an abnormally large number of safety problems, now is also the best time to improve federal safety regulations. “It is unfortunate that rather than getting on board,” said the policy council for auto safety at Consumers Union at a Wednesday press conference, “the automakers have chosen to take” a stance against comprehensive regulations.

In a letter to Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), and Rep. Harry Waxman (D-Calif.) the sponsors of the safety bills in the House and Senate, the auto industry took a strong stance against portions of the bill that could hurt their bottom line. The letter said that while they are dedicated to saving lives, the bill “could negatively impact safety by needlessly undermining aspects of and tiling a process that today relies on the speedy identification and remedy of safety-related defects to one that will involve more guarded communications and second-guessing by lawyers.”

In essence, the industry says that reform would mean more dangerous vehicles and a longer wait to fix problems when they occur. Tell that to Toyota owners who experienced unintended acceleration this year, in addition to the families affected by dozens of other recalls this year alone.

One proposed change the auto industry takes issue with is raising the penalty for companies that don’t quickly notify the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of a safety problem, from $16 million to $300 million. The auto companies allege that this harsher fine would cripple smaller car manufacturers. But the $300 million is only the maximum fine, and would only be implemented in the most flagrant circumstances for the largest companies.

Currently, the fine is so low that it’s in the financial interest of a company like Toyota to hurry the safety process along in order to complete the product. “It’s almost like a rounding error,” said Allan Kam, a 25-year official at the safety agency.

A final vote on these bills has not yet been planned. But this year, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, which represent all major automakers in the country, have already spent $2 million on trying to sway Congress. When that’s compared to the $80,000 spent by the Consumers Union of the United States, it could be an uphill battle for safety advocates.

Photo credit: David Paul Ohmer

In 2006, 17-year-old Emily Liou was struck and killed by a vehicle at a marked intersection on the six-lane El Camino Real in Millbrae. The accident caused brain damage and left Liou in a permanent coma, requiring 24-hour care. ProtectConsumerJustice.com reports this week that the jury awarded Liou $12.2 million for medical damages and future loss of income, but will deduct almost $2.5 million due to Liou’s 20 percent fault for wearing dark clothes at night and not seeing the vehicle.

The jury held Caltrans accountable for 50 percent of the fault for approving the dangerous marked crosswalk on such a heavily trafficked, six-lane street. “Caltrans had blamed our client and blamed the driver,” said Richard Schoenberger, Liou’s attorney. “They systematically avoided any responsibility for their own crosswalk. The jury didn’t agree.”

Schoenberger is correct that Caltrans knew about the dangers of marked cross walks. Two reports by the Federal Highway Administration in 2002 and 2005 titled “Safety Effects of Marked Verses Unmarked Crosswalks at Uncontrolled Locations” show a direct increase in pedestrian accidents at multiple lane intersections with high traffic and marked crosswalks. Statewide, pedestrians account for only three percent of car accidents, but 22 percent of accident deaths. The 2005 report concludes that intersections should have marked crosswalks only accompanied by street lights, or in low-trafficked areas.

Over the past ten years, four other pedestrians have been killed at the same marked crosswalk as Liou, a terrible safety record. “[Caltrans'] defense was, look at how many cars went through that intersection,” said Liou’s other attorney Doug Saeltzer. “They said there had been 90 million cars. But you can never adequately monitor pedestrian safety if you’re not actually monitoring pedestrians. And Caltrans has never systematically measured pedestrian crossing rates.”

No one’s suggesting the eradication of marked crosswalks altogether. But Liou’s death and the Federal Highway Administration’s consistent findings indicate that Caltrans should study the dangers of such intersections and implement clear rules banning marked crosswalks at unsignaled intersections with high traffic and/or more than four lanes.

Photo credit: eflon

At the time, we warned that celebration might be premature, since the report was based from an anonymous source and the NHTSA has said it is not close to making conclusions about the cause of unintended acceleration accidents. This week, Toyota is already wrapped up in a set of new scandals indicating that the company isn’t nearly in the clear when it comes to accident liability.

First, Toyota faces a set of new lawsuits claiming that the Prius, the company’s popular brand of hybrid vehicle, was prone to braking problems on rough or wet road surfaces. When Toyota recalled 150,000 in February to investigate the problem, the NHTSA announced it would probe further. “While the manufacturer of the vehicle is Toyota, the defect alleged in this case is different than the defect alleged in your unintended acceleration cases,” said Paul Kiesel, a California attorney who represents Prius owners.

The NHTSA has confirmed more than 120 Prius brake complaints and more than a dozen Prius drivers nationwide have already sued. On July 29, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation will hear oral arguments on whether the lawsuits should be combined as an MDL. If the case proceeds, it means more trouble for Toyota in the courts, and in public opinion.

In another blow to Toyota’s supposed escape from liability, a “delayed discovery” motion is picking up steam in Los Angeles that would validate dozens of lawsuits that were once considered expired. The complaint argues that Toyota executives knew about cases of unintended acceleration in 2002, but did not disclose their knowledge until earlier this year before Congress. If proven, this would mean the statute of limitations of two years for filing lawsuits would be moot, and drivers involved in accidents now suspected to be caused by unintended acceleration could file new lawsuits.

“It seems to be against civil concepts of justice that somebody can benefit legally from concealing vital safety information from the American public,” said John Kristensen, the attorney representing Barbara Shepard, who filed the complaint.

It’s still too early to predict the result of these lawsuits. But this week’s developments are fodder to those who hope the company will be on the hook for more than a slap on the wrist.

Photo credit: joelCgarcia

The report led a cohort of anti-trial lawyer writers to bask in the “told-you-so” moment. One Toyota supporter, Walter Olsen, a Cato Institute fellow who runs the popular blog Overlawyered, asked at Cato’s blog “can we now look forward to the stream of apologetic stories from major news organizations that bought into theories about mysterious electronic defects in the cars?”

Reading today’s news stories a little closer, though, observers should be careful to pronounce all Toyota litigation dead on arrival. First of all, the Journal‘s story is based on information from an anonymous source. And the Associated Press reports today that Olivia Alair, a spokeswoman for the Department of Transportation has said the agency has “drawn no conclusions and released no data. We will follow the facts and inform the public when our investigation comes to an end.”

Tab Turner, an Arkansas-based attorney representing plaintiffs against Toyota, emphasized the unreliability of the black box tests in an interview with the Journal. “Toyota has always taken the position that the electronic data recorder system is not reliable,” he said. A Toyota spokesman confirmed that the black box technology “wasn’t designed to tell us exactly what happened in an accident. It was designed to tell us whether our systems were operating properly.”

Olsen et. al. are correct that to a troubling extent, we have become an overlawyered society. And if the media hullabaloo surrounding the unintended acceleration lawsuits led to false claims against Toyota, those errors should be corrected. But so far, the Wall Street Journal story, based on the early data from anonymous sources, should not be taken as proof that the entire case against Toyota is exaggerated.

Photo credit: LaurenV

Granted, a $200 million fine will have a stronger impact than the current cap of $16.4 million, which the government fined Toyota for its lackluster response to its unintended acceleration safety problems that resulted in the recall of more than 9 million vehicles worldwide. But federal regulators have said that Toyota would have been on the hook for $13.8 billion if not for the penalty cap.

During each of the past ten years, the auto industry has put more than $50 million toward weakening congressional regulations. “The auto industry has had undue influence on this legislation” said former head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Joan Claybrook. “The industry wanted to change a lot of little words that had a major impact.”

With the help of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, auto industry lobbyists shifted a provision that would have set aside $60 million toward electronic safety systems toward technology to detect drunk driving. This is consistent with Toyota’s claims that electronics were not to blame for unintended acceleration in their vehicles (they blame the floor mats).

While research for drunk driving technology is important, the maneuver was a big win for business as usual in Detroit. Still, MADD president Chuck Hurley “makes no apologies,” adding “If there is a technology that could potentially eliminate drunk driving and save 8,000 to 9,000 lives a year, why wouldn’t we want to fund it?”

Because neglecting to improve safety standards for vehicle electronics will also end lives, says Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety. While the drunk driving technology would take 25 years to take effect, auto safety setbacks will impact vehicle deaths immediately. “If the purpose of the standards is to save lives and prevent injuries, delaying the implementation is not going to achieve that goal,” he said. “The one certainty is that there will be deaths and injuries caused by the delay. What we don’t know is how many.”

While we welcome any improvement to auto safety, it’s unfortunate that the final bill will not demand sweeping safety reforms necessary to save lives. The one silver lining of the final bill is that it will likely sail through both houses of Congress. As Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee told reporters, the legislation “will dramatically improve the safety of motor vehicles…Through this process we were able to earn broad support from our membership.”

The problem, says Gilbert, is that his University receives a large sum of its research funds from Toyota, giving the company weight to pressure the school’s administrators to discredit Gilbert’s research in order to maintain favor with Toyota. Although Gilbert maintains that his purpose was simply to find the truth about these problems, a University spokesman told the Washington Post that “it did kind of catch us off-guard.”

The University even received clear requests that Gilbert be removed from his position. In March, a Toyota Motor Sales employee — and SIU alum — Mark Thompson wrote to the school’s chancellor about his “great concern and disappointment” at Gilbert’s work. After reminding the chancellor about his regular contributions including a $100,000 check to the auto-tech program, Thompson wrote “I believe he should not be an employee of our fine university.”

Gilbert told the newspaper that he never felt like his job was in danger, even though “there were some moments where I kind of felt I was standing alone.” This led attorney critics, like Ted Frank at PointofLaw.com, to say the allegations that Toyota pressured Gilbert against making his testimony were blown out of proportion. Due to “the use of internal university documents without any mention of their provenance,” he wrote, “the story was almost certainly hand-crafted and hand-delivered by plaintiffs’ lawyers.”

Frank has a point that at times, the article reads like caricature of an epic poem description of Gilbert’s quest. But from the evidence provided, it is clear that there was an attempt to suppress Gilbert’s testimony, even if it was not fully endorsed by Toyota. The Stanford University Center for Automotive Research, for example, an organization funded by Toyota and a handful of other car companies, has told reporters that Gilbert’s work “could result in misguided policy and unwarranted fear.”

Either way, to determine whether Toyota’s unintended acceleration problems were caused by electrical or mechanical issues, Congress will need more scientific data. In the mean time, I’d like to see such organizations and universities putting resources toward boosting car safety rather than defending car companies from attacks by notable scientists in the field of auto safety.

Photo credit: Stefano A